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On May 6th, next month i will shoot approx. 10,000 images in that day alone. I have a marathon to shoot and hired 5 other guys that usually bring in 7-10,000 also. There are around 8,000 participants and we try to get 2 or 3 of each person if possible. Of course we miss people but we try.

I am over 10,000 actuations with my 7D. I use the EOScount.com utility

Btw After I reached 9999.CR2 the filenaming started all over from 0001. I really HATE that.Is there a way to change that or not?

If you're using Aperture or LR, have the masters renamed to your preferred naming convention (including date, time and original file name/#)

I do not have LR or Aperture.

The naming convention made me think:

Currently files are named "Img_xxxx.CR2" That is 8 positions - dot - 3 positions. This exist from the Microsoft DOS period. I assume that if I skip on the "Img_" there will be 4 additional character spaces that can be filled with a number. Theoratically it should allow 10001.CR2 and later 100001.CR2 and later 1000001.CR and if the camera would allow it even 10000001.CR2Or....am I wrong in this assumption?

Even if you do not use LR or Aperture the naming convention should not be a problem. But if you use EOS utility then the following method should help.

Open EOS utilityClick on "Preferences" button at the bottom of the dialogue window.Select "File Name" TabClick on the button which probably has "Do not Modify (Download Images)" a drop down list will appear.You have four options to choose from.I prefer the last "Shooting Date+Prefix+Number". But it depends on your preference.Now you can play with the "Customize" button, number of digits, start etc. You are no longer limited by the camera's numbering system.See what options suits your needs and what you like.Save these preferences and then when you download your images they will be names according to your choices.You can also change the destination folder to download the images in the first tab.

Hope this helps.

Great! Thanks for your help. I just didn't explore the EOS utility in that way. Sloppy of me!

Currently files are named "Img_xxxx.CR2" That is 8 positions - dot - 3 positions. This exist from the Microsoft DOS period. I assume that if I skip on the "Img_" there will be 4 additional character spaces that can be filled with a number. Theoratically it should allow 10001.CR2 and later 100001.CR2 and later 1000001.CR and if the camera would allow it even 10000001.CR2Or....am I wrong in this assumption?

You're almost correct. The reason that they are named IMG_xxxx.CR2 is indeed an archaism from the DOS days when files were limited to 8 bytes of name and 3 bytes of extension. However, that restriction exists only as an archaism/compatibility issue, and therefore, there's practically no limit to what you can rename your files. Older versions of Windows allowed names and extensions up to 255 characters each, and I believe newer versions, as well as modern Mac and Linux implementations, allow even more than that, so for practical purposes you can rename the file whatever you want.

There's a side-issue at work here, which is that due to long-entrenched standards, CF and SD both use FAT (usually 32, occasionally 16) for their file system. These exceptionally old filesystems (FAT16 was finalized in 1984, positively ancient by computing standards) are basically still used because they work and the industry is allergic to change. They do allow longer filenames than 8 characters, but because of the way they are represented internally, file corruption is not impossible if you use names longer than that, and they're more interested in being reliable than being pretty. It's also cheaper since the firmware backbone to deal with it already exists. If they switched to a modern file system like ext4 or even NTFS, all of these issues would evaporate, and it would become trivial to add to the firmware options to let you format your filenames however you please, so the camera would be able to let you do something like Positron_[YYYYMMDD]_[shuttercount].cr2 or whatever else you wanted.

The reason they don't do this is because they haven't done it yet, and if a new camera supported ext4, anyone who used it would have a card incompatible with any camera before it, people would try to put their card into the other camera, it would say it needs to be formatted, and they'd lose shots since they'd need to find and format a card without pictures on it already, assuming they even have one. And then they'd complain, and Canon would look bad for trying to make a step into the future.

Bottom line: When you're trying to make money, sometimes you have to do things that are patently retarded to keep your competitive edge.

How many pictures per event does all this translate to? I don't do any this for a living but have been covering several events lately. Mostly live music and fundraisers etc.I figure that I shoot about 500 pictures per event of which 100 or so make it into a final selection for processing and for the client to use and/or pick from.

And even if I did one of those once a week it would only come out to 26,000 actuations per year. My 5DII is now two years old and has about 9000 or so actuations on it. It's like brand new. And to me it feels like I have used it a lot. Maybe it's coming more or less directly from film. But I can't get myself just clicking away.

How many pictures per event does all this translate to? I don't do any this for a living but have been covering several events lately. Mostly live music and fundraisers etc.I figure that I shoot about 500 pictures per event of which 100 or so make it into a final selection for processing and for the client to use and/or pick from.

And even if I did one of those once a week it would only come out to 26,000 actuations per year. My 5DII is now two years old and has about 9000 or so actuations on it. It's like brand new. And to me it feels like I have used it a lot. Maybe it's coming more or less directly from film. But I can't get myself just clicking away.

Let's say I do some photoshoots per week. 1000 photos all together per week and that times 52 weeks is 52,000 photos a year. That over a 3 year life of a camera is about 150,000 shutter actuations.

Currently files are named "Img_xxxx.CR2" That is 8 positions - dot - 3 positions. This exist from the Microsoft DOS period. I assume that if I skip on the "Img_" there will be 4 additional character spaces that can be filled with a number. Theoratically it should allow 10001.CR2 and later 100001.CR2 and later 1000001.CR and if the camera would allow it even 10000001.CR2Or....am I wrong in this assumption?

You're almost correct. The reason that they are named IMG_xxxx.CR2 is indeed an archaism from the DOS days when files were limited to 8 bytes of name and 3 bytes of extension. However, that restriction exists only as an archaism/compatibility issue, and therefore, there's practically no limit to what you can rename your files. Older versions of Windows allowed names and extensions up to 255 characters each, and I believe newer versions, as well as modern Mac and Linux implementations, allow even more than that, so for practical purposes you can rename the file whatever you want.

There's a side-issue at work here, which is that due to long-entrenched standards, CF and SD both use FAT (usually 32, occasionally 16) for their file system. These exceptionally old filesystems (FAT16 was finalized in 1984, positively ancient by computing standards) are basically still used because they work and the industry is allergic to change. They do allow longer filenames than 8 characters, but because of the way they are represented internally, file corruption is not impossible if you use names longer than that, and they're more interested in being reliable than being pretty. It's also cheaper since the firmware backbone to deal with it already exists. If they switched to a modern file system like ext4 or even NTFS, all of these issues would evaporate, and it would become trivial to add to the firmware options to let you format your filenames however you please, so the camera would be able to let you do something like Positron_[YYYYMMDD]_[shuttercount].cr2 or whatever else you wanted.

The reason they don't do this is because they haven't done it yet, and if a new camera supported ext4, anyone who used it would have a card incompatible with any camera before it, people would try to put their card into the other camera, it would say it needs to be formatted, and they'd lose shots since they'd need to find and format a card without pictures on it already, assuming they even have one. And then they'd complain, and Canon would look bad for trying to make a step into the future.

Bottom line: When you're trying to make money, sometimes you have to do things that are patently retarded to keep your competitive edge.

Ok. Just a check: so if I name my files: [shooting date][prefix][number (6 digits)].CR2 is that too long with risk of filecorruption or damage to the memorycard? Especially shooting AI-servo 8fps?

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The more you look, the more you see ─ Robert M. Pirsig

prestonpalmer

On May 6th, next month i will shoot approx. 10,000 images in that day alone. I have a marathon to shoot and hired 5 other guys that usually bring in 7-10,000 also. There are around 8,000 participants and we try to get 2 or 3 of each person if possible. Of course we miss people but we try.

Currently files are named "Img_xxxx.CR2" That is 8 positions - dot - 3 positions. This exist from the Microsoft DOS period. I assume that if I skip on the "Img_" there will be 4 additional character spaces that can be filled with a number. Theoratically it should allow 10001.CR2 and later 100001.CR2 and later 1000001.CR and if the camera would allow it even 10000001.CR2Or....am I wrong in this assumption?

You're almost correct. The reason that they are named IMG_xxxx.CR2 is indeed an archaism from the DOS days when files were limited to 8 bytes of name and 3 bytes of extension. However, that restriction exists only as an archaism/compatibility issue, and therefore, there's practically no limit to what you can rename your files. Older versions of Windows allowed names and extensions up to 255 characters each, and I believe newer versions, as well as modern Mac and Linux implementations, allow even more than that, so for practical purposes you can rename the file whatever you want.

There's a side-issue at work here, which is that due to long-entrenched standards, CF and SD both use FAT (usually 32, occasionally 16) for their file system. These exceptionally old filesystems (FAT16 was finalized in 1984, positively ancient by computing standards) are basically still used because they work and the industry is allergic to change. They do allow longer filenames than 8 characters, but because of the way they are represented internally, file corruption is not impossible if you use names longer than that, and they're more interested in being reliable than being pretty. It's also cheaper since the firmware backbone to deal with it already exists. If they switched to a modern file system like ext4 or even NTFS, all of these issues would evaporate, and it would become trivial to add to the firmware options to let you format your filenames however you please, so the camera would be able to let you do something like Positron_[YYYYMMDD]_[shuttercount].cr2 or whatever else you wanted.

The reason they don't do this is because they haven't done it yet, and if a new camera supported ext4, anyone who used it would have a card incompatible with any camera before it, people would try to put their card into the other camera, it would say it needs to be formatted, and they'd lose shots since they'd need to find and format a card without pictures on it already, assuming they even have one. And then they'd complain, and Canon would look bad for trying to make a step into the future.

Bottom line: When you're trying to make money, sometimes you have to do things that are patently retarded to keep your competitive edge.

Ok. Just a check: so if I name my files: [shooting date][prefix][number (6 digits)].CR2 is that too long with risk of filecorruption or damage to the memorycard? Especially shooting AI-servo 8fps?

There's no risk once the images are off the card, and there's no way to set the camera to write the filenames like that while they're still on the card, so no. The only risk I could think of is if you had more than 999,999 such images and put them all on one card at the same time (which is when the card would no longer be able to tell them apart and you'd get corruption).

It is practically new!! If I change over to D800, someone will be getting a flawless camera for a REAL BARGAIN!!

All my gear is well taken care of. There's no doubt that DSLR would last me 10 solid years. Great quality. Heck, I met a guy who used his 5d2 for wildlife shooting and it was so beat up the LCD had glass chunks missing on two of the outer edges!! I shot it a little (before I bought mine) and that wonderful Canon 5d shutter sound was still perfect. I'm willing to bet he had 150,000+ actuations on that camera!!

LOL! I tried parting with my 1dm3 to get another 5dm3 but i couldn't get enough for it and it is a heck of a lot more valuable to me than some shmo asking how many actuations before buying it haha. Beside The internals getting replaced pretty much means new every time because my body has minimal scuffing, looks new cept the bottom where i used to attach my monopod, now i use a RRS plate and Tilt head. All the buttons and dials are D series quality, still about as snappy and responsive as when i bought it new in 2007.